Flower Gardens

This past November I moved into a two story townhouse with a patio and backyard. A first for me. So, this afternoon, in the near 90 degree heat, I spent my first afternoon gardening after picking out some flower baskets and some other plants for the backyard. I picked out colorful snapdragons, petunias, lobelia, nemesia and geraniums.


I also planted some some cinnamon and sweet basil. My plan is to add some tomatoes, a zucchini plant and peppers in mid-May once the risk of frosts is finally gone.

Malaria No More

Every 30 seconds in Africa a child dies from Malaria. By simply donating a $10 mosquito net, you can save an entire family.

Make a donation today:

http://www.malarianomore.org/

Views From Underwater

Last weekend I took a trip down I-95 to for lunch with a friend and a trip to the National Aquarium in Baltimore. I hadn't been in ages--not since the Sea Horse exhibition years ago. Despite being over run by ankle biters, it was still a lot of fun. Here are my favorite pictures from the afternoon below:

Inaugural Seating Map

The scramble is on for Obama inauguration tickets. Three of my friends and I are trying to get tickets for the swearing in ceremony on January 20th. We've all made our official requests; but, my friend Elisa out in Washington State is the only one to have someone from her Congressperon's office even respond.

For the 240,000 tickets available, the ticket requests coming through Congressional offices are off the charts. As of Sunday US Senator from Virgina Jim Webb had received 26,000 requests alone. The National Park service says that the last time a one million+ crowd descended on Washington for an inauguration was the 1965 inaugural of Lyndon B Johnson. Obama's inauguration could easily top that, in my opinion. Everyone wants to be there to witness history (and watch Bush finally move out of the White House).

At this point, we think Elisa's the best hope at this point since we figure fewer folks from Washington State will make the cross-country trip. The other three of us who live in Philly, DC, and Chicago respectively think our odds of scoring tickets are slimmer than a Bush third term since we all live in high demand areas. But, we're keeping our fingers crossed that we'll get lucky.

In the meantime, I saw a new seating plan for the 1 million+ folks expected to descend on DC for the inauguration:

Obama Wins!!!!

The Electoral Map Live

Olbermann Skewered Deliciously

Don't try drinking anything while watching the second half of this one.

Falling into the Poconos

I drove back up into the Poconos this past weekend to the picturesque little town of Jim Thorpe for their Fall Festival and some leaf peeping. The little Leigh High Valley town, was originally two towns,Mauch Chunck (Indian for Bear Mountain) and Eastern Mauch Chunk. Both thrived and blossomed with the discovery of anthracite coal.*

Tycoon Asa Packer was instrumental in developing Mauch Chunk into a 19th century center for commerce, canal trade and coal shipping. In the mid-1850s, Packer, worth a reported $54 million in today's currency, was responsible for laying rail road tracks that connected Mauch chunk to Easton, PA and further into the NJ Central Railroad system, providing year round transportation for both coal and steel.

After the death of Native American and 1912 Olympian Jim Thorpe in 1953, the two small, economically struggling towns united and changed their name to Jim Thorpe after an appeal from Thorpe's wife who was looking for support to build a memorial in honor of her husband. Thorpe's native Oklahoma had turned away her request to to assist in developing a memorial.

Packer built two of the largest mansions in towns that sit high a top a hill, overlooking the canal. The mansion below, was built for Packer's son Harry. This mansion would later be the model for the Walt Disney Haunted House.


Below is the Asa Packer mansion which sits next his son Harry's. I had a hard time getting a clear shot of the due to the trees.



*Historical details supplied courtesy of http://www.visitjimthorpe.com/new/history.htm

SNL's Palin Rap

Amy Pohler's Palin Rap from Saturday Night Live. Over the top, but a lot of fun.

No Game Changer

McCain needed a knock out punch during the debate tonight just to get back in the game and he didn't get it. According to a CNN focus group who watched the debate live, while McCain won the first 30 minutes, he lost the last hour as he got testier and testier (his temperament has long been a stumbling block for him). There in lies one of McCain's fundamental problems--he's just not likable. A CNN post-debate telephone poll with viewers who watch the debate rated McCain's likability as only 22%. And this is big trouble for McCain who trails in the polls in a number of key states. Not only isn't he likable, the average voter just isn't connecting with him.

The average voter just can't connect with a man who has 7+ houses (actually doesn't know how many he has) and at least as many cars. McCain hasn't spent a day in his life wondering how to pay his many mortgages; worrying about how he's going to pay a hospital bill if he get's sick (he's been covered by Federal health insurance for most of his adult life--first in the Navy and later as a 20 year veteran of Congress); wondering if he should pay the electric bill, water bill or phone bill this month; or how he's going to pay for his childrens' education.

McCain's biggest problem is he's out of touch and he did nothing tonight to portray himself otherwise. We've got 19 days until the election and a lot can happen in that time. But, for the moment, I'm cautiously optimistic.

America Will Once Again Rise From The Ashes of the Bushes

So said Senator Hillary Clinton this afternoon at a rally in Scranton, Pennsylvania that I attended. Dramatic perhaps, but hopefully true. Bush Sr. drove us into a recession during his presidency and Jr. has spent the last 8 years driving us into an even bigger mess. We're in dire need for someone to go in and clean up the Shrub's mess and it certainly won't be McCain. McCain will keep us on the same old destructive policies that have led us into a War in Iraq and a global financial crisis. President Clinton got us to a surplus in 8 years time and a booming economy. Let's hope Obama and Biden can do the same for us.

Below are the first pictures from the rally this afternoon. I'll a few more in a day or two when I have time to finish editing.

Remember, friends don't let friends vote Republican! There's way to much at stake this year.


And a clip of a video from this afternoon's rally:




Want to get to know the real John McCain? Check out this RollingStone Article here: Make Believe Maverick

Before And After

Would you follow these two off a cliff?

This Pat Oliphant cartoon pretty much sums up the McCain-Palin candidacy:

Fall Flowers

I drove out to Solebury Orchards today by New Hope, PA to pick up some Honey Crisp apples and fresh cider. As chilly as the weather was yesterday (it was in the 60s all day), it was blazing hot today and hard to believe the first day of fall is tomorrow. Due to the heat, I skipped the "pick your own part" and bought my apples in the market. Instead I spent my time wandering through their flower garden, trying out my new the 50mm lens I got as an early birthday present (which is tomorrow). Click to make the pictures bigger for better detail.

Glass Houses

Hmmm ... The Republicans would never do something so dastardly as play the gender card over the coverage their new VP candidate is getting would they? After all, didn't they mock Hillary for complaining about the media coverage during the primary? I believe Sarah Palin herself even said that Hillary needs to quit whining and just "work harder" to prove she's good enough.




In case the embedded video won't play properly for you, here's the direct link: it's too good too miss: Daily Show Sarah Palin Qualifications

Gosh the GOP would never indulge in hypocrisy would they?

Some more lessons from Republicans now that Palin is their new candidate:

• If you're a Democrat and you make a VP pick without fully vetting the individual you're "reckless." A Republican who doesn't fully vet is a "maverick."

• If you say that for the "first time in my adult lifetime I'm really proud of my country" it makes you "unfit" to be First Lady. If your husband has been an active and registered member of a fringe political group that advocates Alaska seceding from the United States, then he's perfectly qualified to be the "Second Dude" because you can tell he only joined the group because he's really proud of his country.

• If you grow up in Hawaii you're "exotic." Grow up in Alaska eating moose burgers, you're the quintessential "American story." (Hey I have moose burgers every Friday night, don't you?)

• Teaching about birth control in schools is wrong because it only encourages teenagers to have sex. Teaching about abstinence will stop teen pregnancy completely because no teenager will ever have sex if we teach that. In fact, we should cut the funds allotted in the Alaskan state budget (and all of the rest of the states while we're at it) to support unwed teenage mothers because they all have wealthy families who will take care of them.

I'm sure the Republicans will have some more important lessons for us in the coming weeks that they will dispense from their beautiful glass houses.

(Special thanks to Heidi for her email this afternoon and Elisa for the video hookup)

By The Light Of The Full Moon

Bee captured!

Bees never can resist the sweet nectar of a flower.

Zootopia

I wrapped up my vacation last week with a trip to the Philadelphia Zoo--the oldest in the country, dating back to 1874. I strolled through the 42-acre Victorian Gardens in an 85 degree heat that assured anyone who had been in doubt, that summer had finally arrived to Philadelphia after a chilly and wet May.

The Zoo is home to 1300 rare animals and I spent my afternoon there capturing some of them with my new Canon Rebel Xsi DSLR. While many of them were doing their best to keep out of the hot sun or cat napping, others like the African elephants, flamingo and giraffe were out soaking it up. I'll have more pictures up this weekend, but here a few to start with. Click on any picture below to view a larger version.

Amur Leopard

Snow Leopard

Giraffe

Cheetah

Penguins

Giraffe

Peacock

Asiatic Black Bear

Looking For A New President

Eight years ago we had a booming economy, a budget surplus and respect throughout most of the world. At the end of the second-term Bush Administration it's all gone--a distant and wistful dream. Add to that a quagmire in Iraq and Bin Laden still on the loose and you have a grim picture of the United States current status. Thank God, Bush can't run again.

Now, it's up to us to pick the right candidate to revive our economy, extricate our soldiers from Iraq without causing a disaster for either the military or the Iraqi people and restore the luster of the US reputation globally. For the last couple of months, I've been vacillating between supporting Hillary Clinton or Barak Obama. After watching all the debates, I've come to the realization that there is little difference between the two; either one can do the job and do it well. Obama is the better orator, but Hillary is the better policy wonk.

We almost have an embarrassment of riches this year in the Democratic party. I can't remember the last time there were two candidates (three actually if you count the recently departed John Edwards) that I could support enthusiastically. And therein lies my problem: which one will get my vote during Pennsylvania's April 22nd primary?

In an effort to make a decision, I went to the Barak Obama rally today in Wilmington, Delaware. I arrived at Rodney Square around 10:30 a.m. to a line that wrapped around a large city block for the 1:15 pm rally. The gates would not open for another hour, yet those at the front had been there since 8 a.m. These are the kind of lines you see for rock stars, not politicians.

Luckily for me just as I completed my long circuit around the block in search of the end of the line, a volunteer told me and a few other to head back to where we began to start a second line. In the end we lucky souls would get in ahead of many of those who had been line for hours since we were towards the front of a much shorter line.

As we waited in line, the excitement was almost palpable. College students mixed with the baby boomers. Parents held their children by the hand, telling them they were there to see history. They came from as far away as New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Maryland. Volunteers worked the lines. "Who can come out and volunteer on Super Tuesday? All you have to do is sign this list. We need to you to make 'get out the vote' calls." Another came by. "Have you signed the list yet?" And yet another. "Who wants to volunteer? We need you. The Senator needs you."



Finally, the gates opened and we made our way through metal detectors and got wanded down after, tripping them. While many made their way down into the square in front of the podium, I found a sunny spot on a concrete parapet with a good view. As the temperature soared into the 50s, my coat came off and I settled in to wait. The Square slowly filled up as around 20,000 made their way in, until they over-flowed into the surrounding streets.



At 1:15, the Senator from Illinois made his way into the Square along the rope line. The crowd went nuts, screaming and chanting; it began to sound more and more like the last rock concert I went to. Finally, Obama mounted the podium and began his stump speech.

Hope was a major theme in his stump speech. He spoke about repairing the damage from the Bush administration at home and abroad, education, veterans rights and extricating us from the Iraq war among other things. His speech was punctuated by cheers, applause and screams from a crowd that was clearly drinking the kool-aid. Below are a few snippets from his speech.

While I enjoyed Obama's speech, I heard nothing new that I hadn't already heard in the debates. Nothing new to help solidify my support. I think I'm still a Hillary girl when it comes down to it. I think she's better on the details. And I've been waiting for a female President for as long as I can remember. She may not get the nomination, but she has my vote. If in the end, Obama does ultimately get the nomination, I will support him. But, for now, I have to go with where my heart is.

Wrinkle No More

One of my favorite childhood writers died yesterday at the age of 88. Madeleine L'Engle was the author of the 1962 book, Wrinkle In Time, the book that introduced generations of children to science fiction and fantasy. I spent my grade school years reading about Meg Murray, Charles Wallace and Calvin through Wrinkle and its sequels Wind in the Door, and A Swiftly Titling Planet. As I got older, however, my favorite series of hers was the Austin Family series. I was captivated by A Ring of Endless Light and subsequent novels in the series.

Much like JK Rowling who followed in her footsteps years later, L'Engle's books touched on sweeping adult themes such as the battle against evil, totalitarianism and the power of love. They were captivating books that transported readers to new worlds and made you understand this world better. Only the best writers can do this. And L'Engle was one of the best. While the planet may no longer tilt for her, her stories live on. And through them, so does she.